The phrase “Net.Art” came about accidentally when an artist received an anonymous email in 1995 where the only legible part of the message was “Net.Art” and all the other words were jumbled up. Net Art encompasses digital activities ranging from emails, texts, digital graphics all merging with each other. It was a modge podge of both tech critics and artists and general enthusiast hobbyists. In some websites, programming became visible and became interactive to the viewer. I thought this was an interesting idea because I feel like nowadays most websites are created so that it flows seamlessly and the user doesn’t have to think about the coding behind the website and how it functions. Net. Art could also be compared to Duchamp’s urinal in the way that it changed how people viewed art and that it had a lot of backlash about whether or not it should be considered art. After reading this article I had a lot of questions come up specifically related to art ownership in the digital realm and how net art is considered art versus just a part of a website. I also thought it was interesting that instead of looking and evaluating Net Art based on what it looks or feels like as we do with many other types of art, we evaluate it based on the interaction within it through links, clicks, and email exchanges. It seems like Net Artists were as much about furthering different ideologies, exchanging ideas, and creating a statement as they were about creating art.
